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FCC Commissioner Clyburn Statement on AT&T/Fibertower Transaction

"It has long been customary at the Federal Communications Commission for Bureaus planning to issue significant orders on delegated authority to provide those items to Commissioners 48 hours prior to their scheduled release. Then, if anyone Commissioner asked for the Order to be brought up to the Commission level for a vote, that request would be honored." That is a direct quote from then-Commissioner Ajit Pai during testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee on March 18, 2015. Given his view of well-established customary practice, I am disappointed that Chairman Pai did not honor my request to have the full Commission vote on an Order that permitted the transfer of 39 GHz licenses from FiberTower to AT&T.

By objecting to proceeding on delegated authority, I do not suggest that I would have voted against this transaction. Rather, the Bureau’s analysis is lacking in its current form. I believe that our statutory obligations, under the Communications Act, requires us to do more than simply consider whether AT&T’s 39 GHz holdings, post-transaction, exceed 1850 megahertz of millimeter wave spectrum. The Commission should also consider whether AT&T’s substantial holdings in other spectrum bands, including below 1-GHz, together with these 39 GHz licenses from FiberTower, could result in potential public interest harms.